Steve Redmond
Founder, Valley Wealth Alliance valleywealthalliance.org
Full participation in society relies on an understanding of the ins and outs of earning, saving and manipulating money, yet it’s inconsistently taught, especially among the already disadvantaged. To help level the playing field, Steve Redmond founded Valley Wealth Alliance (VWA), an Allentown-based nonprofit devoted to financial education. Here’s how this organization empowers and inspires youth through hands-on learning.
The Need
Redmond spent his career in the field of juvenile justice, watching young people come and go, wracked by the same problems decade after decade. Now he’s focused on prevention, hoping to give kids from the Allentown School District where VWA operates a better footing for a fruitful life.
“I grew up middle class,” Redmond says, “but we seldom spoke on certain financial literacy topics in my home and our generation did not have the internet to help us research career opportunities. I knew that if I had so little exposure to that in a stable household, kids in lower-income homes don’t have it at all.”
Higher-income families tend to have fluent access to the financial system and all the ways it can serve them in their quest for prosperity. It’s second nature to pass this knowledge along to kids who often already have a college fund growing along with them from birth.
The Situation
As it stands now, schools choose on an individual basis whether to teach financial literacy to their students, leaving us with a patchwork of knowledge supplemented by what kids might learn at home. Financial education will often appear through a school’s math program as a way to teach that subject rather than as a subject in itself.
Last year saw a new law passed in Pennsylvania to mandate a personal financial literacy course be taught in all the state’s high schools, starting with the 2026–2027 year. We’re not sure yet what this promising development will look like in practice, but it’s likely to reinforce the lessons VWA provides. Hands-on and engaged with the community of business leaders and entrepreneurs, Redmond’s program prompts its students not just to know, but to do.
It becomes fun for them to see their score go from 650 to 680.
The Curriculum
There’s no reason to wait for high school to lay the foundations of understanding. Valley Wealth Alliance starts in Grade 3 with basic information about what banks do and a project to build your own piggy bank, leading kids to interact with money in an intentional way.
Building on that knowledge grade after grade, students in the credit program in high school have learned how to apply for and receive their own cards and are working on driving up their credit scores. “It becomes fun for them to see their score go from 650 to 680,” Redmond says. A former student, now in college, reached
out just to celebrate getting to 779.
Grade 9 students in the paycheck program are learning not just how to read their first paychecks and the difference between gross and net pay, but how to dress and perform to ace job interviews. Far beyond just word questions calculating compound interest, these lessons are in practical skills and strategy that could shape futures.
Local Business Engagement
Valley Wealth Alliance runs an eight-week quarterly program called Kidz Mean Business to familiarize students with the tools of entrepreneurship and the business community they can soon be a part of.
Taking the trial and error out of pursuing this option lets young people cultivate their creativity. From setting up a website to starting an LLC, the building blocks of business are demystified, and visiting mentors offer advice as well as networking connections. “We brought in an executive from Estée Lauder to talk about team building,” Redmond says. “We brought in marketing companies from Allentown to talk about how to promote business.”
The kids also have the chance to visit and observe entrepreneurs in action by touring local businesses, observing the ins and outs of daily operation. Not only do they carry these contacts with them, the students form a cohort among themselves to draw upon.
Adults Also Profit
Adults also get help figuring out the world of finance and getting their affairs in order. “People can be a little embarrassed of their financial situation,” Redmond says. “When they see us working with their kids they open up more.” Whether it’s low credit score or falling behind on bills, there’s help without stigma for them.
Kids start with a clean slate, but for adults, a lot of the assistance VWA provides is reparative, reestablishing credit or gathering documents necessary to open a bank account. This is especially helpful for Allentown’s non-English-speaking population, who might need translators to explain the process.
While VWA currently serves the Allentown School District exclusively, parents around the Valley are clamoring to get their kids the advantages of participation. With greater resources, this organization could do an even greater world of good.
Published as “Ask the Expert” in the July 2024 edition of Lehigh Valley Style magazine.
